Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Understanding the Swiss

To understand what Swiss people are about one of the most important things is to understand how their country (and political system) operates.
Switzerland is not an ordinary country. Swiss people like deciding about their own future and their country's. In practice this means that they actually decide what would happen in their country. That's part of the direct democracy, the system they are running over here. Basically citizens directly vote on anything that would affect their country. Does anyone (and that does not mean the government!) want to increase the yearly highway fee? They cannot unless the citizens vote with yes. And that's about every single thing.. Anyone who has enough signature collected (not sure about the number exactly but want to raise it in the future) for an initiative  can put it up for a vote and citizens do have to vote about it nationwide. Consequently, there are a LOT of voting going around here but maximum 'only' four nationwide each year.
The next one is coming up in February on several topics including immigration and who is paying for the bill in case of an abortion. Yes, that's a unique country indeed.

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